Life on The Edge
13/04/97 15:12 Filed in: The Edge
Life on The Edge
Scott Whalen, for the Whig-Standard
When it's too dangerous to put a 12-foot, 1,600-pound snarling grizzly bear named Bart in the same scene with actors like Sir Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, you call on Belleville's Doug Knutson.
Knutson, a video producer based in the Quinte area and a graduate of the Queen's University film department, worked on the Alberta set of The Edge, a "Jaws-on-land" action adventure feature that opened yesterday across Canada. It was Knutson's job to help line up shots so that big Bart and the high-profile actors were never actually within striking distance of each other, although it looks like they are doing battle on the screen.
The Edge, formerly titled Bookworm, was written by playwright David Mamet (Oleanna, Glengarry Glen Ross and The Verdict) and tells the story of three men struggling to survive following a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness.The thriller also stars Elle Macpherson and Harold Perrineau and was directed by Lee Tamahori.
Knutson worked as a composites video editor on the Twentieth Century Fox production, spending more than one month on location in the Canadian Rockies near Canmore, Alta. He used a process called chroma-key, which utilizes a blue screen to shoot the actors and bear separately and then he lined up the shots so it would appear they were in the scene together in the final product.
This was the first feature film work for the reserved video producer, who has since been employed on commercials for Labatt's Blue and Bell Advantage in Toronto. He got the job through a company called D-Vision, which is based in Toronto and deals in high-end computer video editing software. When the producers of The Edge contacted the company looking for a composites editor, a salesman recommended Knutson.
"I was in the right place at the right time and I have a film background and film education," says Knutson. "It was kind of intimidating when I heard about the job, but I was glad it all
Doug Knutson with his composites video editing equipment on the set of The Edgehappened so quickly. It didn't give me much time to think about it. The Edge is certainly the biggest thing I've ever worked on.
"I literally got off the plane in Calgary, got a ride to Canmore, dropped my bags off at the hotel and went right to the art department. We started testing equipment right away."
What exactly is composites editing?
Anthony Hopkins meets up with Bart the grizzly bear in the new film The Edge. Belleville video producer Doug Knutson worked on the movie set.While the edits in the film aren't actually Knutson's, it was his job to record on video exactly what they might look like. Later, when the movie was edited in London, many of the edits that were chosen "on set" were made. Knutson's video version of the action helped show Tamahori exactly what the final product might look like.
But the job was much more involved than that. One of Knutson's biggest jobs was to "blend" two scenes shot separately into one. First, the grizzly might be shot in a menacing pose. Then the actors were shot separately, in front of a blue screen, reacting to the bear that wasn't really there.
By "chroma-keying," or wiping out the blue on video, Knutson was able to show those on the set whether the actions would match up in final edits.
ADJUSTMENTS
Another challenge for Knutson came courtesy of one of the stars.
Hopkins suffered from serious back problems during the making of The Edge. While he was in hospital recovering from surgery, the cameras continued to roll. In one scene his double was used and it was Knutson's job to match up Hopkins' head (shot against a blue screen) onto the double's body.
This photo by video producer Doug Knutson shows Bart the grizzly in action."While the actual edits in the movie aren't mine, I was there to provide an on-set visualization," says Knutson. "There was a guy in Canmore doing some editing. But they would shoot their film, take it to Vancouver for processing, make Betacam copies and send it all back to Canmore to edit the following day. But if you're on a set and it is only constructed for one day, you want to know right then and there what it might look like. That's where I came in."
It wasn't all high-pressured work for Knutson on set. He says there was a lot of "hurry-up-and-wait." Some days, he would set up his equipment, be available for 12 hours and then not work. But on other days, he was the centre of attention for both the director and the actors.
"I recall one very complicated shot. While it was being filmed, the director was right there over my shoulder, to view it as it was happening. And when it ended, the actors were right there too, saying: 'Great, I love that! Look at that action!'
"They were all really happy and I remember big smiles from Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins and I thought, 'whew, that feels good.' "
Scene from The Edge, featuring Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin.Knutson also got a behind-the-scenes look at some of the film's stars. Of supermodel Elle MacPherson, he simply says she was "very tall." He says Baldwin was affable and fun-loving and his lasting image will be of the actor reclining in a portable hot tub in the wilderness, while wearing sunglasses and smoking a big cigar.
He spoke directly to Hopkins once, after a family member sent him a story in the Belleville paper about the famous actor and the making of The Edge in Alberta. He decided to give it to the movie's star.
CLOSE CONTACT
"He was really nice and thanked me for the clipping of the article. He wanted to know where Belleville was."
Knutson was later chastised by some of the film producers for marching right up to the star on the set, but he says the respected actor didn't seem to mind.
He says the whole experience of working on a big, Hollywood movie helped demystify the process a little for him.
"What amazed me a lot of times was the shortcuts they would take. They would get away with things I wouldn't think they could get away with. One thing that hit me was, when you see the set in front of you, when you see what is going on, it looks so different compared to what it looks like on the screen.
"I had the monitor right there and I could get a sense of what it might look like. But I'd look over and there was a scene with big scrims overhead and lights and people standing around eating and drinking coffee and stuff like that. It seems like an unreal comparison. I guess that's where a good cinematographer comes in."
The Edge is a fitting title for the movie because it literally took the cast and crew right into the heart of the Canadian wilderness.
At a few locations in Banff National Park, park rangers patrolled the set in case other black bears and grizzlies decided to come and get a closer look at Bart, who was brought in from Utah with a team of trainers.
Although no bear "extras" showed up on set, Knutson smiles when he recalls some of the protocol shared with the cast in case another bear did arrive, like: Leave all your equipment behind.
Another scene from The Edge, featuring Alec Baldwin and Elle MacphersonOn his days off, Knutson roamed the Rockies and saw plenty of wildlife on his own, including moose, cougars and wolves. Ever the photographer, he shot rolls and rolls of still film to record the spectacular environment.
Asked to describe his most memorable shoot, he mentions Moraine Lake, a cobalt blue body of water among towering mountains.
"It was just a blizzard and the mountains were stretching into the wilderness and Hopkins and Baldwin are trying to trek their way out of the wilderness."
Knutson admits his anticipation level about actually seeing the film is mounting, especially as the previews get more and more TV airtime.
"I'll likely fill the theatre with people I know. I hope it does well. I think it will."
BACKGROUNDER
- Belleville's Doug Knutson has more than 70 video productions to his credit
- Knutson is a writer, video editor, researcher, producer, director and freelance news camera operator
- He's worked extensively on videos for local boards of education, industry, tourism, the medical profession, municipalities, conservation authorities, a water quality cleanup project and much more
- In the late 1980s, Knutson helped shoot and edit Springtime, a musical vignette about spring in Kingston, which aired on CKWS-TV
- He also travelled to Italy to create an interactive video called the Realities of Battle Series, for the Canadian Land Force Command and Staff College in Kingston. It documents Canadian, German and Italian veterans describing their battle experiences
- His special interest is local history and he is currently working on a biographical portrait of Captain John Walden Meyers, an American Loyalist and prominent Canadian pioneer
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